No Love Without Truth

Posted on 4 February, 2012 by Jon Gleason

Amy Carmichael

If I am content to heal a hurt slightly, saying “Peace, peace,” where is no peace; if I forget the poignant word “Let love be without dissimulation” and blunt the edge of truth, speaking not right things but smooth things, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

The Apostle Paul
Ephesians 4:15

15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

There is no “tension” between truth and love.  If our words and actions are not pervaded with the love of God, they are not true — we give a distorted picture of God.  If our words and actions are not faithful to God’s truth, they are not loving — we are deceiving people as to who God is and what He has done. 

Real truth is always loving. 
Real love is always truthful.

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Guest Post: Me-First at the Grocery Store

Posted on 2 February, 2012 by Jon Gleason

Michelle Brock blogs at As4Me, “an attempt to catalog my struggles, growth, and learning in the process of teaching my children about God.”  Mothers with young children might find her blog very profitable — but her auto-archive pulled up a post yesterday (originally written four years ago) that is a good challenge for all of us.  Michelle graciously gave me permission to post the entire article here:

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Some Great Pictures of Bible Places

Posted on 2 February, 2012 by Jon Gleason

I’ve meant to post a link to this for a while, and never got around to it.  I’d like to refer you to BiblePlaces.com.  They have some great pictures of places mentioned in the Bible.  They also have larger collections available for sale.

For many places you encounter in your Bible reading, you can go to their site and see several pictures that will give you a little more feel for the location, and sometimes that can give you a better understanding of what is being said in the Scriptures.  God made us to be visually oriented.  Sometimes, things just become more real for us when we see them.  I believe this is a very valuable resource.

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A Proverb for Today — Proverbs 1:17

Posted on 1 February, 2012 by Jon Gleason

“Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.” (Proverbs 1:17).

This proverb stands in the middle of a warning passage, and really can’t be understood in isolation (unlike many of the proverbs in the last half of the book).  So let’s look at the context, verses 10-19:

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What Did Christ Do to My Sin?

Posted on 31 January, 2012 by Jon Gleason

This is from a sermon I preached in 2005, after a man in our church asked some questions about God’s forgiveness.

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Is the Oldest Manuscript Really Best?

Posted on 30 January, 2012 by Jon Gleason

The Oldest and Best Manuscripts?

In my first post on New Testament Textual Criticism (NTTC), I defined the term as “the study of ancient manuscripts to try to discover the original text of Scripture.”  This area of study is the source of a common expression in Christian writing today:  “The oldest and best manuscripts say….”

Near the end of the post, I discussed the statement that NTTC is just like the textual criticism of any other book, and that this fact, and the fact that the Bible is “not like any other book,” caused me to begin to lose confidence in the rules of NTTC.  I’d like to discuss one of those rules in this post, so fasten your seat belts and get ready for some time travel, as we examine this “rule”:

The reading of the oldest manuscript is preferred.

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Posted in Bibliology, NT Textual Criticism | Tagged , , , , , , | 38 Comments

The Marriage Killer

Posted on 27 January, 2012 by Jon Gleason

My wife sent me this link today from the Wall Street Journal.  She didn’t nag me to read it, or nag me to post it. 🙂

Meet the Marriage Killer

The value I see in it:

  1. It recognises the destructiveness of nagging.
  2. It gives some constructive ideas to help break the cycle, if this has become a problem in your marriage.

An excerpt (emphasis mine):

•Calm down—both of you. Recognize the pattern you are in and talk about how to address it as a team. You will both need to change your behavior, and ground rules can help.
•Look at it from the other person’s perspective. ‘Honey, when you ignore me I feel that you don’t love me.’ ‘I feel that you don’t appreciate what I am already doing when you nag me.’

Nagging is sinful behaviour.  I talked about it in my post for wives on I Peter 3:1-6, and in the following post for husbands about the dangers of husbands tempting their wives in this.  If there is nagging in your marriage, you are part of the problem and are responsible to help fix it.

This article from the WSJ is not written from a Biblical perspective, and it does not recognise the proper role of authority in a marriage.  But the author has recognised the destructive nature of nagging, and provides some useful ways to change the pattern.  I commend it to you.

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